Everyone is welcome to contribute, and the rules for doing so are pretty loose. This is intended to be chaotic, amorphous, overlapping, interlocking, living and growing - just like us and our culture. It’s not quite a traditional tarot deck, although if you want to incorporate traditional elements, by all means do so. Right now I want to really concentrate on tapping into and highlighting the “modern archetypes”, whatever they are. Can be obvious, obtuse, can be silly, sinister, happy, whatever.
All you really need to do is create a card which includes both a graphical image and a text title of some kind. Post your image somewhere, and then send me a link. I will then go through and update the master list of all the cards. A link back to this site is also required when you’re posting your card so that people know where to go for more information and other cards.
General Guidelines
- Don’t worry if you don’t know much about tarot. This is simply about identifying the symbolic stuff hidden under and criss-crossing our culture.
- Try to use pretty recognizable images where possible. The whole point is that these images “speak” to people. They should be drawn from the world of pop culture and celebrities, but can include pretty much anything else too (within good taste - whatever that means to you).
- Try to put together recognizable images in new, weird ways to expose new meanings and connections.
- Think about what different celebrities and things “represent” mystically or psychologically, or whatever.
- Don’t worry about a literal or fixed meaning of your card. The more possible interpretations, the more powerful the symbol becomes. It can and should mean different things to different people.
- Try to think in opposites - everything contains it’s opposite. Sort of a yin-yang thing, like each card could contain both positive and negative aspects. Tarot cards can usually be read rightside-up or upside-down - called “ill-dignified.” Usually the inverted position indicates either the opposite of the card’s normal meaning, or else a “blockage” in that force. (This may be good, bad, or neutral)
- Try to keep it “roughly” in the size and shape range we’ve established so far (approximately 300×400 px).
- I’d love it for now if each card had a recognizable name. Like the name of the character you’re invoking, or the name of a force, or event or something.
- When you post or submit your cards, I’d love it if you could give a little bit of a description of what it “means.” Possibly also include references to other stories and traditions which may not be explicit in the card, but which would offer useful supporting info. It doesn’t have to be exhaustive by any means, but it could sort of be a springboard for inspiring other people on how to “use” or further develop interpretations of your card.
- Might also be cool if we wrote interpretations of each others cards, and wrote like “readings” using them. You know, sort of examples of how they all connect together into neighborhoods and networks of related cards.
